Bug 83117 - TOOLBAR: Addition of 'insert footnote' button to standard toolbar
Summary: TOOLBAR: Addition of 'insert footnote' button to standard toolbar
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.4.0.0.alpha0+ Master
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Footnote-Endnote
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-08-26 23:00 UTC by Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired)
Modified: 2016-10-12 16:35 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
References tab in Ribbon UI - Word 2007 (36.91 KB, image/png)
2014-09-16 04:41 UTC, Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired)
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-08-26 23:00:49 UTC
As stated in the toolbar improvement meta bug 81475, inserting a footnote is  commonly inserted elements in a document, so i'd like to suggest the addition of the insert footnote (.uno:InsertFootnote) button, which is presently found in the insert toolbar, into the standard toolbar.

'insert footnote' stats:
1) Percentage of users who activate it from the menu: 92%
2) Ranking of usage of button in the insert toolbar: 3rd
3) Ranking of usage of the insert element: 6th

I'd like to suggest that the entry be placed before the drawing functions (.uno:InsertDraw) button.
Comment 1 Cor Nouws 2014-08-27 21:21:14 UTC
Hi Jay,

(In reply to comment #0)

> 'insert footnote' stats:
> 1) Percentage of users who activate it from the menu: 92%
> 2) Ranking of usage of button in the insert toolbar: 3rd
> 3) Ranking of usage of the insert element: 6th

Does this also say how often people use it?
I'm highly surprised that Insert > Footnote would be so often used.
Comment 2 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-08-28 00:50:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Does this also say how often people use it?
> I'm highly surprised that Insert > Footnote would be so often used.

Hi Cor,

Yes the ranking of 6th place means that its the sixth most added element into a document. Here is the ranking of inserted elements and their main place of activation.

1) Table (84% from toolbar)
2) Image (86% from menu)
3) Symbol (95% from menu)
4) Insert Break (99% from keyboard)
5) Line (99% from toolbar)
6) Insert Footnote/Endnote (98% from menu)

Most documents of any kind will footnotes in it, including books, guides, reports, wiki pages, etc. It is the number 1 used reference/cross-linking element.
Comment 3 Cor Nouws 2014-08-28 20:28:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)

> Yes the ranking of 6th place means that its the sixth most added element
> into a document.

The 6th place still isn't a measure of quantity. 
Imagine a sequence  100  -  93  - 90  -  76  - 20  - 7
The the 6th position is not that much.

Not that I am looking for opportunities to disagree with you, but I do like sound arguments ;)
Comment 4 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-08-28 21:37:57 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> The 6th place still isn't a measure of quantity. 
> Imagine a sequence  100  -  93  - 90  -  76  - 20  - 7
> The the 6th position is not that much.
> 
> Not that I am looking for opportunities to disagree with you, but I do like
> sound arguments ;)

Unfortunately, the OOo statistics only tracked the click throughs users made and doesnt provide what percentage of documents used a feature over the others. If i had to put a number to the usage of footnotes, i would likely say that 75 to 90 percent of documents i've seen have footnotes in it, as its the most basic means of referencing. I've seen it used more than page breaks (number 4) and drawn lines (number 5).
Comment 5 Cor Nouws 2014-08-30 14:17:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)

> Unfortunately, the OOo statistics only tracked the click throughs users made
> and doesnt provide what percentage of documents used a feature over the
> others. If i had to put a number to the usage of footnotes, i would likely
> say that 75 to 90 percent of documents i've seen have footnotes in it, as
> its the most basic means of referencing. I've seen it used more than page
> breaks (number 4) and drawn lines (number 5).

So then it looks as a combination of numbers and subjective/personal information.
In the end we don't have enough numbers, and if we would, we still could not go blind just on those, so human interpretation and intelligence is always needed and thus gathering opinions and listening to those.
It would not be handy to give the impression that the available numbers are enough and decisive ;)

From my experience I would expect that less then 20% of document has foot/end notes..

Under View > Toolbars there is the Insert one. Offers a great set of icons for insert functions. I would expect that is the place to go.
Comment 6 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-08-30 18:49:07 UTC
(In reply to comment #5)
> So then it looks as a combination of numbers and subjective/personal
> information.
>
> In the end we don't have enough numbers, and if we would, we still could not
> go blind just on those, so human interpretation and intelligence is always
> needed and thus gathering opinions and listening to those.
> It would not be handy to give the impression that the available numbers are
> enough and decisive ;)

I think the stats do speak for themselves on the usage and believe they are more than sufficient. When i gave my opinion on how often footnotes are used, this comes from my experience of working at a publishing house, reading over my father's published books, reading over my mom's academic papers, and finally the sample documents users sent in for the bug reports i did QA on.

> From my experience I would expect that less then 20% of document has
> foot/end notes..

Even if 20% of documents did have footnotes in them, that means 1 in 5 people use it, which still means it deserves an toolbar icon.

> Under View > Toolbars there is the Insert one. Offers a great set of icons
> for insert functions. I would expect that is the place to go.

The main problem is that most users dont go beyond the toolbars that are presented to them, which means they will never see or enable the insert toolbar, which is why 92% of users goto the menu to insert a footnote, with only 5% go to the toolbar and 3% using the shortcut key.
Comment 7 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-09-16 04:41:57 UTC
Created attachment 106350 [details]
References tab in Ribbon UI - Word 2007

Hi Cor,

In order to bring more sound arguments to this topic, you can find the importance of the insert footnote within ms word's ribbon UI's references tab (the ribbon UI has large icons for more important buttons).